Mitsubishi Pajero and 4 other brand names that were not successful

Introduction

A brand name can sound very nice and cool in your native language. If you then want to conquer the international market with your product or service, it is tempting not to adapt your brand name abroad. However, this can be a big mistake. Learn from the following international companies and avoid making a fool of yourself abroad.

The Mitsubishi for assholes

When Mitsubishi introduced the Pajero in Spain, the Japanese automaker must have thought it already sounded nice in Spanish. Nevertheless, any Spaniard could have told you that pajero is a swear word in Spanish that means something like "asshole. While this might have been an interesting niche, Mitsubishi quickly changed the name of this SUV to Mitsubishi Montero.

The source water for drug dealers

Italian and Spanish are two languages that are very similar. In fact, Italians and Spaniards can understand each other reasonably well when communicating in their own language. Still, things can go wrong. Italian spring water producer Traficante also wanted to tap into the Spanish market, but didn't realize that traficante means "drug dealer" in Spanish. Therefore, this did not turn out to be a golden move.

Multi-purpose tissues

Procter & Gamble decided to introduce the tissues Puffs, known in the United States, to the German market under that name as well. If only someone had told them that Puff is slang for "brothel" in German. Not surprisingly, these tissues did not drive sales figures to an all-time high.

Dangerous cars in China

When Mercedes Benz entered the Chinese market, it used the brand name Bensi. Sounds nice, right? Not when you consider that Bensi in Chinese means "hurry to die. Surely this was not the image Mercedes Benz was going for.

You pay less tax with this car

Finally, an example from the auto industry. When Citroën launched a large family car, the French manufacturer wanted to impart the feeling that you can get out and about with this car. Hence the name Evasion, something that means "escape" in French. In the marketing department, however, no one noticed that evasion means "tax evasion" in English. When this became clear at headquarters in Paris, the manufacturer decided to change the name to Citroën Synergy.

Do you want to be successful with your brand name abroad? Then always check the name for unintended negative connotations with a native speaker. You can have this done by a translation agency that works with native speakers, such as translation agency Interlingo. This may prevent a lot of headaches and image problems.